Cause event and effect of the whiskey rebellion

During the American Revolution, individual states incurred significant debt. In 1790 Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton pushed for the federal government to take over that debt. He also suggested an excise tax on whiskey to prevent further financial difficulty.

President George Washington was opposed to Hamilton’s suggestion of a whiskey tax. In 1791 Washington journeyed through Virginia and Pennsylvania to speak with citizens about their views. Local government officials met the idea of a whiskey tax with enthusiasm, and Washington took this assurance back to Congress, which passed the bill.

But protests against the new tax began immediately, arguing that the tax was unfair to small producers. Under the new law, large producers paid the tax annually at a rate of six cents per gallon, and the more they produced, the further the tax breaks. Small producers, however, were stuck with paying nine cents per gallon in taxes. Farmers took further issue because only cash would be accepted for tax payment.

The federal response to the Whiskey Rebellion was widely believed to be a critical test of federal authority, one that Washington’s fledgling government met with success.

The whiskey tax that inspired the rebellion remained in effect until 1802. Under the leadership of President Thomas Jefferson and the Republican Party (which, like many citizens, opposed Hamilton’s Federalist tax policies), the tax was repealed after continuing to be almost impossible to collect

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